Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the disclosure relates generally to establishing and maintaining communication sessions between two or more endpoints.
Description of the Related Art
In communication systems configured to establish interactive communication sessions between two or more persons, it is not uncommon for one, some or all of the persons to be placed on “hold” pending the availability of an interactive communication session resource. By way of illustrative example, in a contact center context, a contacting party (e.g. a customer) may use a regular telephone, a smartphone, or a mobile or desktop computer terminal (equipped with a microphone, speakers, user interface and, optionally, a camera) to request an interactive communication session with an agent. In this context, the agent is a requisite interactive communication session resource. If no agent is available to speak with or conduct a video conference call with the contacting party, the contacting party is placed in a queue until an agent does become available.
Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) are the result of an ongoing effort to develop industry standards for integrating real-time communications functionality into web clients, such as web browsers, to enable direct interaction with other web clients. This real-time communications functionality is accessible by web developers via standard markup tags, such as those provided by version 5 of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML5), and client-side scripting Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) such as JavaScript APIs. More information regarding WebRTC may be found in “WebRTC: APIs and RTCWEB Protocols of the HTML5 Real-Time Web,” by Alan B. Johnston and Daniel C. Burnett (2012 Digital Codex LLC), which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.
WebRTC provides built-in capabilities for establishing real-time video, audio, and/or data streams in both point-to-point interactive sessions, as well as multi-party interactive sessions. WebRTC standards have been jointly developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Information on the current state of WebRTC standards can be found at, e.g., http://www.w3c.org and http://www/ietf.org. An example of a communication system configured to employ WebRTC as part of an interactive communication session between two or more parties is the Contact Center.
In contact center implementations of WebRTC, interactive communication session resources (ports, bandwidth reservations, etc.) are frequently negotiated and set up between a contact center server and the endpoint communication terminal used by a contacting party. At some point in the session flow, WebRTC is used to establish an interactive communication session between the contacting party and a contact center agent. The WebRTC ports and connections are established well in advance of the assignment of an agent, however, because a suitable contact center agent is typically not available right away at the time of contact. While the contacting party is waiting for a contact center agent, the contact center system may stream continuous hold music punctuated by periodic estimated wait time updates over the established communication session, as well as queries for information to be supplied by the contacting party, and various other announcements to be audibly reproduced by contacting party's endpoint device.
The thoughtful use of interactive session connections, WebRTC or otherwise, to set up and maintain an interactive conversation with one or more clients, customers, potential customers, investors, and others, can substantially enrich and enhance the experience for all parties concerned. However, as will be appreciated by the contact center “customer on-hold” example discussed above, the resources which must be allocated in order to establish a truly “interactive” communication session between endpoints may go unutilized for substantial periods of time while one of the endpoints is inactive. Since a network administrator must provision a network with sufficient resources to accommodate periods of peak demand, higher costs may be incurred for equipment, software licensing, and/or bandwidth quality of service (QOS) reservations costs than would be the case if these costs were based on actual real-time needs.
A need therefore exists for systems and methods which are able to deliver the same end user experience that can be obtained using a conventional WebRTC session, but with greater efficiency and/or control over the utilization of bandwidth and resources needed at any given instant in time.